


imperfection.

by Bounteous



Series: let me lie beneath myself. [5]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ash Lynx Needs A Hug, Ash-centric, Blood and Injury, Eiji-centric, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Okumura Eiji Needs a Hug, Recovery, Relapsing, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28566282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bounteous/pseuds/Bounteous
Summary: Things get worse before they get better
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Max Lobo & Ash Lynx
Series: let me lie beneath myself. [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068368
Comments: 11
Kudos: 82





	1. rising action.

**Author's Note:**

> a restless nightmare.
> 
> my mental walls are crashing down on me  
> wide awake in this nightmarish thought  
> please save me from my own mind
> 
> -'a beautiful composition of broken' by r.h. Sin

Screaming.

So much goddamn screaming.

None of it is his own.

But then it is.

He can recognize a few of the voices… Skipper, Griffin, Shorter…

They torment him relentlessly. He can’t recall a time when he was this mentally weak. 

On one hand, therapy is an intrinsically good thing. On the other, there’s that feral, beastly part of him unwilling to sacrifice the tough exterior he’s developed over the years. It’s weathered now, beaten and scraped and wind-whipped over the course of a short few months. 

Those ghastly parts of him, all bloodied and raw, spill out onto the pavement. 

The chips in his armor widen with every nurturing gesture.

Eiji claims it’s a good thing.

Aslan is not so sure. 

It should be, shouldn’t it? He should want to get better. He’s not so dense to not realize his limbic system is fucked up; a cost of which G— effortlessly paid in favor of more suitable ventures. Aslan used that fact to his advantage at one point, too. 

He’s paranoid.

Horribly, terribly afraid that one day he’ll completely lose the defensive parts of him and something will come along only to shatter this feeble heart of his into a million, dead pieces.

Aslan will die on his own terms. He needs these walls, brick inlaid with violence and threat, for the moment he’s ready. A plan years in the making.

He needs to protect Eiji first. And he can’t do that if his memories make his vision blur with tears rather than the former red-hot rage. 

He is… pathetic. Unworthy. Undeserving. A shell of a human who doesn’t even technically exist.

Light flickers in his peripheral. Max. Or, his caller ID, rather. Aslan’s phone is on permanent silence.

The pencil, already fifty percent sharpened, drops from his hand. The puncture wound leaves a trickle of glossy, red blood down his arm. It was accidental. He hadn’t even been aware…

He answers Max’s call, his facade like a scintillating shield of light.

“Hey, kiddo! How’re things?”

_ Fine. _ “Just fine. What about you, old man? Fighting with the wife as usual?”

“I’ll have you know Jessica and I have stayed civil all week!”

_ This is tiring. _ “Shall I congratulate you with a gold star?”

“And a pack of beer, too, please. How’s Eiji? Where is he?”

_ Far away from me. _ “Working. A shoot ran later than anticipated.”

“That’s too bad, you’ll have to let him know I miss you guys.”

_ You shouldn’t. _ “I will.”

“And how’re you doing, Ash?”

A violin chord screeches, out of tune, in Aslan’s ear. His name-change is a confession he hasn’t been willing to make to the others quite yet. 

“Ash?”

Nails on a chalkboard.

“Hello? You still there?”

“I’m fine. Eiji’s fine. We’re fucking perfect.”

He doesn’t mean to end the call. Max calls back right away, anyway.

He answers again.

“I thought Eiji was the worse liar between the two of you. Cut the shit, what’s going on?”

So much. Too much. Too much to handle and he’s falling down a pit and he won’t be able to pick himself back up and Eiji needs to get away before he gets hurt again and his past seems so much more tangible than ever before and—

“If I can’t even admit it to Eiji, then how do you expect me to admit it to you?”

On the defensive as per usual.

“Eiji’s sometimes the most difficult person to tell things to, isn’t he?”

Hm.

“When did you become a therapist?”

Max’s breathy laugh is a welcome reprieve.

“Journalism requires getting difficult answers out of difficult people, too.”

“I suppose it does.”  
Max’s sigh, however, sucks him right back in.

“You are your own demise, kid, but you’re not Eiji’s. That’s a good thing because it means you can do something about it. I know you’ve thought about this. This is your confirmation from an unprofessional.”

Aslan hangs up the phone when he can’t fathom a reply.

When Eiji comes home later that evening, Aslan pretends he didn’t have a lapse.

Eiji notices.

No communication is made.


	2. climax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at 7:22 p.m., to my love.
> 
> will you miss me when i’m gone  
> what will the room sound like  
> without my voice  
> what will the room smell like  
> without my scent
> 
> my random sayings  
> my cough  
> my laughter
> 
> me yelling when angry  
> the sound of me weeping  
> when sad
> 
> my smile  
> will you miss it  
> my lips, my tongue  
> the kissing
> 
> -'a beautiful composition of broken' by r.h. Sin

Aslan had never bothered planning a future for himself. Need he explain why?

Now, however, certain moments in his day trigger an explosion of  _ what-ifs _ , a kaleidoscope of newly tangible dreams.

Aslan has accumulated an entire wall of books, placed precariously and haphazardly on stained wood built from floor to ceiling. A collection of presents, tokens, affections—they’ve all been thoroughly leafed through, marked up, dog-eared. 

He’s taken to penciling in his name inside the cover of each, ownership fulfilled. 

Eiji stands small compared to the looming expanse of titles and authors staring back at him. Pointer finger outstretched, he follows along a row of literary merit, mouth echoing his thoughts as he reads the spines. A small, skinny copy catches his eye and he pulls it out with soft curiosity.

“It’s a play; ‘Death of a Salesman,” Aslan answers Eiji’s unspoken question.

His fingers flip through the pages, the sound gentle and comforting to Aslan’s ears.

“Aren’t plays meant to be watched, not read?” He asks; a question of many and widely misinterpreted. 

“I’ve never been much interested in actual theatre.”

Eiji puts the book back as if the spot is its spot and not simply the place Aslan stored it last. The search continues with profound interest. 

This wall of literature wouldn’t exist if Aslan hadn’t survived.

Would it continue to exist if he doesn’t survive today? Tomorrow? Into next year? Stuck in a perpetual state of inevitably and fruitless longing. Or would it be torn down in a fit of self-righteous anguish?

Aslan doesn’t know which one he’d prefer. 

He imagines Eiji might go crazy with grief because that’s just the kind of overwhelming love he holds deep in his heart. 

He’d probably hear Aslan’s voice, the fluctuations in varied moods and the lilt when he reads aloud. A gentle sort of cadence he never thought he’d be capable of. 

American meals might make him physically sick to his stomach, unable to handle the smells without remembering times long passed. Black coffee would become revolting in a different way. His clothes would be shoved to the back of their closet until the must becomes pleasant, regrettably desired. 

Eiji would move on, though, right?

Aslan is not worth wasting away his entire life.

Eiji’s rebuttals mean nothing in the face of such sordid opinions of himself. 

_ How do I unravel the darkness within him? _

_ How do I untwist the way he thinks, looks, feels? _

_ How do I smother him with love without triggering reactions? _

Eiji desperately wishes Aslan could see himself the way he sees him. He wouldn’t be able to dismiss such unwavering, such substantial evidence. 

He hasn’t voiced it yet, most likely never will. But Eiji can see. Can see the ideation floating within those depths of jade.

Eiji would miss him too much. Would probably try to follow him. He’d follow him anywhere if only to protect him from himself.

He picked up the play because it sounded sad like Aslan sounds sad. He hopes their endings don’t align. 

Aslan’s looking at him in that way again. The way in which he stares, unseeing, eyes unfocused. His mind is clearly adrift, lost in plans and puzzles and conundrums. 

It’s the way his brain works, Eiji has discovered. Everything is a series of steps to him, a means to an end. Things always have to end, loose ends tied tightly together while others are cut, burned, frayed at the seam. No traces.

This living life precariously domestic is abnormal. He’s unsure, hesitant, doubtful. His mind has surely created some drastic, dramatic resolution.

Eiji is at a loss.

He wants to weep.

He wants to break something.

He wants to kiss the pain away.

He picks another book instead.

“Can you read this to me?” He requests, holding the cover towards his boyfriend.

The giddiness that arises with that word is unparalleled. 

Aslan squints, his glasses clumsily left atop another surface in the house, and replies, “‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’? You probably won’t even be able to understand it.”

Eiji pouts, annoyance outlining his edges.

“I just like listening to you read. Please?”

Aslan stands, limbs stretching far above his head and popping with an audible sigh, and moves to grab the worn book. He grabs Eiji’s wrist instead and pulls him to plant a kiss squarely, resolutely on the mouth. 

Eiji blinks, bewildered, red creeping up the expanse of his neck and blooming across his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears. Then, Aslan plucks the book from his hands. 

“Bedtime, yeah?” he quips, nonchalant.

Eiji smiles, his biggest and brightest smile in a while, and replies, “Yeah.”

_ I’d miss everything about you. Please don’t ever leave me. _


	3. climax reprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no. 1 in April.
> 
> these words pour from me  
> like rain from foggy skies  
> i often fear that i’ll drown  
> in my own pool of sadness  
> submerged, reaching for no one  
> because only i can save myself  
> i have always saved myself
> 
> -'a beautiful composition of broken' by r.h. Sin

Eiji feels angry.

At Aslan.

At himself.

At the world, mostly, for the scenarios in which he and Aslan were destined to meet. 

In another life, would they have even glimpsed at each other? Felt the same pull?

Or did things have to happen exactly as they did in order for these two opposing souls to cross paths? 

_ How very cruel,  _ Eiji thinks.

Aslan says a lot of things he doesn’t mean. 

Eiji knows this, but he’s hurt all the same. He tries placating himself, keeping his insides to a simmer. Aslan notices, and that sometimes makes it worse. 

Their relationship has been pulled taut with the thinnest rope imaginable. That’s Eiji’s visualization, anyway.

He stays stock-still, steady, pole-vaulter’s hands clasped tightly together. Aslan pulls and pulls and pulls. He looks exhausted, yet he does not cease his fruitless cause. And Eiji cannot move forward, unwilling to give Aslan a single, slimmer of an opportunity to run further away. 

Eiji voices these thoughts to his own therapist. 

He voices them so loudly that all the scars along his torso shriek to drown him out.

He prays for the day Aslan stops fighting him. The day that all the voices in his head stop negating him at every turn.

_ Yes,  _ he thinks,  _ how very cruel _ .

Aslan has not been able to get out of bed today.

His body is heavy like stone. His bed is quicksand. 

He had no nightmares, but a restless sleep perpetuated by the blinding white of the moon. Eiji’s warmth had been next to him all night, the couch untouched. The state of things were green check marks, so he woke up irritated and confused.

He’d swung a shirt over his bedhead and slipped on some plaid pajama bottoms when gravity suddenly felt like iron shackles weighing him down. 

Eiji had stopped speaking to him after the twelfth time he’d repeated, “I don’t want to get out of bed today.”

Aslan doesn’t want his help.

Aslan can help himself.

But not today.

Today he will wallow. Foat. Dive. Sink. Stay.

Sifting up sand and memories. Sand and thoughts. Sand and blood.

Is today the day? Yes? Possibly? Maybe?

No. He has no energy today. He’d fail. Eiji would find him. Call out to him in horrified screams. And he’d be denied yet another choice. 

“I’ve prepared us lunch if you’re hungry at all.”

Aslan blinks slowly, turning his head to acknowledge Eiji’s muffled words. He feels lightyears away.

Jade eyes zero in on the gauze wrapped tightly around his wrist.

“What the fuck, Eiji?”

Static energy. That’s what he feels running through him at this moment. Gone are the shackles, snapped away with a lightning shock. Gone is the heaviness, the analogies of stones and quicksand. 

Rounding the bed—one, two, three, four steps—he exclaims again, “Eiji, what the fuck?”

“Excuse me?”

Eiji doesn’t mean for it to sound as angry as it does.

Clearly, by the surprise flickering in between pupils, neither does Aslan.

“This.” He holds Eiji’s bandaged wrist up. “What is this?”

Why does he sound so scared?

Eiji kind of wants to punch him.

“I cut myself with the chef’s knife.”

His heart. He can’t feel it anymore. The beating has stopped. The flow of blood has stopped. It’s dropped straight into his stomach.

Lips trembling. Whispered. “Why?”

The answer to this question, whatever it may be, is a catalyst.

Things suddenly make sense. Eiji is… sad.

Aslan really thought…

Wait. No.

“I didn’t cut myself on purpose!” 

Indignation flares like the flames of Hell.

Aslan is so selfish.

Who does he think he is? Why is he the only one allowed to protect? Allowed to care? Allowed to feel unsolicited concern? Why does he think himself allowed to worry about Eiji teetering off the edge of instability? That’s not fair.

Eiji feels like he’s just been pushed a thousand steps back and away from Aslan. By Aslan’s own hands.

He cannot describe the way his patiences has snapped so cleanly in half.

Or the way tears have begun free-falling down his cheeks like he imagines Aslan might one day. 

Or the way he’d absolutely despise himself if he were to say things in this fit of rage he knows he does not mean.

“I do not wish to speak with you right now.”

Aslan’s eardrums explode at the sound of their door slamming shut.

Things make too much sense and he hates it.

**Author's Note:**

> Support my ko-fi if you enjoyed my writing! https://ko-fi.com/bounteous


End file.
